Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Articles

CSR Weekly Articles Updates: Justmeans

2010-10-08T03:11:00.000-07:00

In defense of CSR - Akhila Vijayaraghavan

Today I read something painfully ignorant in BrandLine, The Hindu Business Line's supplementary. The column by Harish Bijoor that is usually spot on and informative was a sad let down. Mr. Bijoor reckons that CSR is nothing more than branding and even those who "deny it soutly will admit it some day or the other."

Bijoor goes on to say, "CSR helps organizations achieve a soft image for themselves." Many companies will beg to differ from this statement because we are seeing companies who are adopting the principles of CSR and retaining their 'hard' business edge and in many cases doing better for it. He elaborates by saying that a company that produce a traditionally unsustainable product "indulges in CSR to escape the guilt-trip the corporate organization finds itself on."

Post continues: http://www.justmeans.com/In-defense-of-CSR/33777.html

CSR and Product Stewardship - Mary Sue Schmaltz

It has long been a CSR principle that entities which profit along a product chain retain responsibility for the life-cycle impacts of their products and packaging materials. The U.S., however, has lagged behind in the institution of a federally mandated Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) law also known as Product Stewardship.

At their meeting in June 2010 held in Oklahoma City, the Environment Committee of the US Conference of Mayors put forward a resolution supporting both state and federal EPR legislation. Since the greater cost of waste and recycling end up being paid for by municipalities, the committee asserted that this cost burden is effectively a subsidy for producers. According to the Electronics Takeback Commission, e-waste recycling legislation has been passed in 23 states and is being introduced in several more. Earlier this year, the electronics industry filed a lawsuit against New York City's e-waste recycling law, but it was dismissed after the New York State Legislature passed a statewide e-waste law.

Post continues: http://www.justmeans.com/CSR-Product-Stewardship/33817.html

CSR and Conflict Minerals - Mary Sue Schmaltz

Supply chains and local working conditions are vitally important issues in CSR. Conflict minerals are an especially problematic area, as sourcing of raw materials can sometimes be difficult to discern. Soon, however, it will be mandatory for U.S. companies to adhere to new regulations geared towards creating transparency in the use of conflict minerals. Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act entrusts the SEC with establishing a regulatory framework as of April of 2011, which will require public companies to issue reports and be audited on their use of conflict minerals. In light of the complexity inherent in ascertaining which mining operations are controlled by rebels, USAID and the State Department have been directed to map out the constantly shifting conflict territories and guide companies in this process.

The viciousness of the civil war provoked by the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone in the 1990's, brought global awareness to the issue of conflict diamonds. It became glaringly evident that the appetite of western consumers for diamonds was financing these and other violent insurgencies in Angola, Liberia, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and the Republic of Congo. All of these countries are now part of the Kimberely Process which was instituted after much deliberation in 2003, under the auspices of the United Nations. In order to filter out conflict diamonds from the legitimate diamond trade, the process entails the acquisition of validated government certificates for both rough and polished diamonds and requires that they be transported in tamper proof containers. As a result of this certification process, almost 99% percent of traded diamonds are now considered to be conflict-free.

Post continues: http://www.justmeans.com/CSR-Conflict-Minerals/33814.html

CSR - the devil's in the detail - Sarah Brown

Marks and Spencer - the iconic British retailer and pioneer of so many successful CSR initiatives, has come up with another thoughtful idea. They have announced a way of making their clothing labels more sustainable. From next year they will be made from recycled polyester.

It is this level of attention to detail which is so impressive in this initiative, as in many of M&S's CSR ideas.

Care labels on clothing may seem small and insignificant, but as M&S has pointed out, when you multiply one label by 300 million (the amount which will be produced from the new materials) its impact is obvious.

The labels (which represent around two-thirds of all those produced for M&S) will be produced from around 200 million recycled plastic drinks bottles. These will replace labels made of 'virgin' polyester, which requires oil for its production.

The fact that the new labels will mean less need for fossil fuel based plastics, gives this CSR practice credibility.

Making clothing out of recycled plastic (which has long been the case with fleece jackets and is coming into vogue for football shirts) is not always the most sustainable option. This is because it is always better to opt for 'closed-loop' recycling. That is, turning the used product back into the same thing - a plastic bottle back into a plastic bottle, for example. This uses far less energy and is consequently better for the environment. You can easily, for example, make a football shirt out of cotton. If it is organically grown and fairly traded then cotton is a sustainable material. There is actually no need to make a football shirt out of plastic bottles.

Post continues: http://www.justmeans.com/CSR-devil-s-in-detail/33729.html

Mining Problems

2010-05-05T02:19:00.000-07:00

April of 2010 will always be remembered as a sad time for the mining industry. Only five days into this month, the news media was scoured with articles about the terrible explosion that claimed the lives of 29 people. Follow up reports continue to pour in, each revealing egregious oversights on the part of Massey Energy. It is horrible to think that such a tragedy could --- and should--- have been prevented.

Should investors in Massey Energy have known better than to keep their money tied up in such a problematic investment? In fact, investors are often shielded from the information they need to make responsible decisions. Over the course of one week this month, I published a series of articles that hopefully provided some perspective on standards for this industry. In fact, multi-stakeholder groups have provided significant input to guide and shape the industry. Hopefully this guidance is starting to be heeded.

Unfortunately, not every company feels that it needs to be a leader in corporate responsibility, which is the real problem. You will notice that Massey Energy is not included on any of the lists of mining companies affiliated with initiatives for reforming the mining industry (see “Responsible Mining Industry Initiatives”, published on the Justmeans CSR editorial page on April 21^st). No big surprise, but a good reminder that corporate commitments to ethical standards are far from pervasive at this point in time.

Photo credit: infomindeva

CSR Hero: Jeffrey Hollender “Tax Me More!”

2010-05-04T09:02:00.000-07:00

Although reluctant to award Jeffrey Hollender any more credit than he already receives in droves, his most recent initiative is charming. Hollender teamed with other millionaires and have been organized by a group called United for a Fair Economy to advocate for higher taxes on the wealthy- taxes that they would be subject to pay. The group is especially persuasive in requests to Congress to repeal the Bush era tax cuts for Americans making more than $250,000, since they are Americans making more than $250,000. The move signals an awareness of corporate social responsibility growing in wealthy Americans, in and outside the office.

Prior to this time, c-level management has been almost certainly anti-tax, and has lobbied accordingly, and aggressively to keep taxes down. This new movement is completely unique. Apparently Hollender isn’t the only one who minds raising taxes… according to the Washington Post quoting United for a Fair Economy executive director Brian Miller, almost 65% of Americans making over $250,000 a year would not oppose higher taxes on themselves.

Whether moved by guilt over inherited wealth or being born into entitlement, or by some other compulsion, the millionaires’ request for more taxes does point to a fundamental inequity in American tax law. Though called “progressive”, the tax code costs those making less a larger proportion of their income. For example, people making $40,000/year will feel the impact of $3000 in taxes more acutely than someone making $2 million year who is taxed $30000 (not to imply these are their tax rates; both are probably paying at least double what I suggested).

Secondly, unearned income such as capital gains enjoys a much lower tax rate than wages do. In this way, working people pay more, and investors pay less, perpetuating the logical trend that the investment-class will grow wealth at a faster rate than the working-class will. This, combined with the fact that every basis point of tax costs the non-millionaire more, literally and figuratively, creates a system that is unfair on its face. The idea behind this tax type of tax treatment was to incentivize investment; whether investment really needs incentives more than workers need to be able to keep more of their paycheck is a question worth revisiting. Would Wall St. break down under a higher capital gains tax? Where can I place bets for absolutely not?

CSR does not end with the workday. While it’s great to see companies increasingly adopting CSR strategies, policies, and changes business processes- strike that- while it’s awesome to see companies adopting more CSR strategy, it is even better to see management internalize the CSR principles in their daily lives. Corporate social responsibility is greatly influenced by CEO leadership and personal fortitude; company ethics and culture are administered from the top. Thus when c-level management can reform personal priorities for the public interest, it becomes much more likely that they will align their professional lives with CSR as well.

Website review: Eurocommerce’s CSR bridge

2010-05-04T08:52:00.000-07:00

EuroCommerce, a trade association for European businesses, has launched a platform for European companies to gather virtually, learn best CSR practices, and advance the state of CSR. The effort is designed to further connect companies to their stakeholders, critics and thought leaders to advance CSR in Europe. And, most importantly, the website is to showcase successful CSR activity in an effort to preempt regulation that makes CSR activity mandatory.

This website does serve more than an innocuous, CSR promoting purpose; it was made to show European regulators how good businesses are at regulating themselves, and to inform them of the scope of initiatives voluntarily in place. Indeed, a EuroCommission press release calls on EU legislators to “safeguard voluntary nature of CSR initiatives”. So, the website is political –to keep legislators from forcing businesses into compliance- but that’s fine. A recent study showed that risk officers most fear the risk posed by the regulatory environment; CSR plays an important role in staving off regulation, to the extent that it can.

The EuroCommission’s website notes that it wants to show “tangible results” of the success of CSR initiatives in Europe. This website seems to be the first effort to do so. Unfortunately, it also cites the EuroCommissions’ most recent achievements as being in 2006, suggesting that European CSR is not as lively as the EuroCommission would like its website’s visitors to believe.

Nonetheless, the website is potentially an excellent repository for CSR data and information. It’s not there yet- but the framework indicates that it could be. The site offers brief case studies in CSR strategy, white papers and research, and pages that appear to be created by companies. These sections need to be bulked up and enhanced to include multinational players. Although the site purports to facilitate communication between firms and their stakeholders, there is not chat or forum functionality yet. So- how are they to communicate?

EuroCommission’s intention with the website is clear, and the strategy is generally admirable, but the execution is incomplete. The website would benefit from more information about CSR, as well as more deeper case briefs- real proof that CSR is working in Europe. A means of creating profiles would also help the EuroCommision site to actually become a hub for CSR information and collaboration, as would adding chat functions. In short- it will take functionality enhancement to get turn the EuroCommission CSR website into the CSR thought-emporium it aspires to be.

Author: Amelia Timbers

Anti CSR: Oh Goldman; Sweet, Goldman

2010-05-04T08:24:00.000-07:00

How can we escape discussing Goldman Sachs’ swift share price collapse this week in the context of CSR? The federal civil claim plus a potential criminal claim indicate the beginning of the pain for Goldman; European governments are reportedly considering similar legal action, China has taken a stance against them, and they will face private actions. GoldmanSachs joins Toyota, Enron, WR Grace, 2005 GlaxoSmithKline, Merrill Lynch to some extent, Worldcom, Pfizer, Monsanto and other companies whose reprehensible actions landed them in the corporate social responsibility hall of infamy. We have something to learn from these firms.

Americans, even in the lat twenty five years, have seen these patterns play out enough times to be familiar with them. Fraud and cover-ups come in recognizable cycles:

Big growth of a promising, innovative company. Ivy league management, lots of press.
Steady business for a period of time.
Bigger growth! Records break, more press, more money.
Grumblings from consumer protection groups.
An initial scandal, well managed, diffused, tucked away.
Followed by a disastarous scandal that affects and harms many.
Government rebuke, congressional hearings, apologies, tears, etc.
Regulation.
Business adapts and evolves; new company, big growth…

The companies that end up involved in national and international fraud scandals typically share similar traits: unchecked focus on short-term gain, a complete disregard for whom they may harm, and leadership that nurtures both qualities. Most importantly, all companies involved in major fraud in the last 100 years failed their customers. In a chicken-egg problem, do fraudulent companies stop serving customers because they are fraudulent, or is it this failure of core business that leads to the fraud? Had any of these companies continued to delivering on their mission statements and provide valuable products that benefited their customers lives, they would never have gotten into the positions they are in.

Consumer harm is always paired with companies that disregarded their own customers. Sometimes, this disregard is precipitated by great success; when companies have vast cash reserves, there is less hunger to please the customer, the entrepreneurial spirit dies. Successful businesses come to see their customers as inputs, receivables, tools. The dehumanizing effect growth has on customers when companies grow rapidly is well understood; this is why people typically expect a drop in quality once a firm goes national, when bands sign with a major label, etc. However, if firms could just focus on the customer, be obsessed with the customer’s happiness despite their size, they would already be well on their way to social responsibility.

Profit is alluring; however, business does not exist for profit. Business, as a societal function, exists for people, to benefit people, to meet needs. As soon as a business starts meeting its own needs ahead of its customers’, the fraud, in a small way, begins.

BP to fisherman: clean up our mess

2010-05-04T08:18:00.000-07:00

Part of the problem with ecosystem collapse is that the markets related to different components of the ecosystem collapse as well. The Gulf Mexico has experienced diminishing fish stocks for decades, and a similarly depressed economy. The economy was further harmed by Katrina, and now will be retarded even further by the decimating effect BP’s oil spill will have on the region’s remaining fish stocks. Fishermen in the region have been rapidly trying to retrain as crisis management workers to assist BP in cleaning up the very spill that will likely put the fisherman out of business in the area for decades. What’sBP’s responsibility when their negligence eliminates the only regional economic activity there is?

According to the Exxon Valdez precedent, the region will take decades to even partially recover. The Prince Edward Sound has never been the same since the Exxon Valdez ran aground. The salmon stocks have never rebounded and fishermen went bankrupt. The tourism industry, which relied greatly on the pristine environment, was dashed. One report put preliminary damage at $580 million dollars in 1992 dollars; Exxon ultimately paid out only $570 million in punitive damages.

When a company takes on high risk activity such as producing and transporting oil, social responsibility has not, thus far, not been be much of a consideration. As far as corporate social responsibility has come, tree planting and donations to charity don’t mitigate the big disasters. Few businesses in high risk businesses have successfully implemented CSR initiatives either. BP is a great example; they offer vast greenwashing, but little has positively changed about their oil production business.

In cases where CSR fails to alter firm behavior, laws must step in. Currently, the U.S. does not have laws strong enough to send the financial signal that would motivate fundamental change in firm business practices. This was made especially true when the Supreme Court reduced the punitive damages in Exxon Valdez from $4.5 billion, which would have sent that message, to a paltry $570 million, which did not. BP is surely relying on this precedent to protect them from the legal fall out of the current spill.

Where firms cannot find a way to motivate themselves to be preemptively socially responsible, they must be forced to take full responsibility for the entire scope of economic disruption their business operation incurs. Firms whose business practices manage to destroy an entire economy should be obligated to make those economies whole to the best of their ability, even if it compromises the financial integrity of the firm. Each of the gulf fisherman affected by this disaster should be able to relatively easily claim lost wages for at least five years from BP, not be forced to beg for a job from them now that BP has destroyed the economy.

Don’t get me wrong; I love CSR. But like other things I love, I also see its limitations. CSR isn’t enough for the big problems; for the GoldmanSachs; for BPs; for the Toyotas. For that, you need laws that unflinchingly harsh consumer protection consequences that force companies to fully cover the harm they cause, and to actually discourage this behavior in the future.

Questioning Green Certification

2010-04-19T01:08:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, I posted a short piece about Energy Star, the U.S. certification assigned to appliances supposedly demonstrating exemplary eco-efficiency. As my post explained, a small scandal erupted at the end of March, when the New York Times published an article revealing that the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) had managed to secure Energy Star certification for fifteen products that don’t actually exist. The EPA seems to have spent the month scrambling to put in place a set of checks and balances to prevent against further embarrassment.

One reader of my Energy Star piece commented that she was not surprised by what happened since she has never fully trusted certifications. But what is a normal run-of-the-mill consumer trying to do the right thing (while saving money) to do WITHOUT certifications to guide him or her? Aren’t labels a necessary tool?

While certifications provide valuable shorthand for people trying to find products that meet certain standards, it is important for consumers to consider what each label ACTUALLY represents. For example, if you are in the market for a refrigerator and desire one that saves energy, take the time to do figure out what attributes you are seeking and determine if there are additional ways to come by this information. As the Energy Star saga illustrates, Consumer Reports is one good source for information, but the internet has many more.

On that note, I would welcome suggestions from readers. What online resources do you trust for sustainability-related product information and why?

Branching out

2010-04-12T01:15:00.000-07:00

Now that I have covered all of the major 2010 CSR rankings currently on my radar, I could certainly sit back and wait for the next crop to come out. Newsweek has still to present its 2010 edition, and a number of lists I haven’t yet explored have yet to publish as well (the Covalence and Access to Medicine Index are among those I am looking forward to).

In the meantime, I have started taking a slightly different approach, comparing basic CSR lists to a variety of other types of rankings. Doing so offers some interesting insights. For example, juxtaposing the Best Places to Work ranking with other CSR rankings offers the insight that a good CSR program may not be as central to satisfying to employees as CSR practitioners like to suggest, since only twenty percent of companies on the list appeared in even one of the CSR rankings I studied. By contrast, comparing Fortune Magazine’s “World’s Most Admired Companies” (which, by the way, is disconcertingly heavy on U.S. companies) with the rankings suggests that CSR recognition and general reputation may go hand-in-hand. Thirty-eight of the fifty companies selected by Fortune made it onto at least one of the five CSR lists I examined, indicating a reasonably strong relationship (N.B. that I am not making any assertions about causality!).

More to come, and as usual, please pass on your suggestions for additional CSR rankings to explore.

Call for CSR Consumer Insights Data

2010-04-05T04:35:00.000-07:00

In a recent post, I laid out some of the topics I plan to cover in my Justmeans blog this month. I’d like to add one more to the list, and am interested in soliciting your help.

One of the concerns I have seen while working on this blog is a lack of good consumer insights data. I am currently doing research into different market research databases relevant to this topic and would welcome any information readers can offer on data resources for those interested in this topic.

Why is this important? As I hinted in my Justmeans post on the Ethical Sourcing Forum Conference (see “Ninety-Nine Years after Triangle: CSR in Factories”, published on the 26^th of March), one of the big disconnects hindering the advancement of workers’ rights is the fact that companies can’t monetize their efforts in any way. Guarding against human rights abuses is an important tactic for minimizing reputational risk, but wouldn’t it be great if companies taking superior measures to protect the workers in their supply chains could increase revenues as a result of their good efforts? Unfortunately, the word on the CSR street is that consumers don’t want to hear sad stories when buying products, making it counterproductive for firms to share information about their social compliance work. Is this true? And is there any sort of modified messaging that would counteract this problem?

Ah, if only we had data to guide how consumers REALLY receive this kind of CSR information! If you are in a position to share comprehensive data on this subject, please connect with me through the Justmeans website.

Photo credit: ocw.osaka-u.ac

Upcoming CSR posts

2010-04-05T04:16:00.000-07:00

It has been a lot of fun keeping up with your questions! In March, my blog on Justmeans covered a wide range of topics, with posts covering sustainability indices, CSR rankings, games companies play in reporting on their greenhouse gas emissions, a conference on ethical sourcing, a new book on CSR, and a database of information that will freak you out. If this kind of stuff excites you, stay tuned for April, which should offer a rich array of new topics.

While I don’t plan out my posts for the month too far in advance, I thought I would offer a preview of two of the key areas I plan to cover in April. First, I have received some questions about how the approaches of different CSR rankings and sustainability indices compare to one another, so plan to spend some time delving into methodologies. Second, some people have asked me questions as of late about standards for measuring greenhouse gas emissions, so expect to do at least one piece on measurement and reporting frameworks. Finally, on a related note, it seems appropriate to spend some time talking about carbon markets and how they relate to CSR.

What else? That’s somewhat up to you, so please send me emails through Justmeans if you have special requests for CSR-related topics you’d like to see me cover in my blog.

Financial reform bill suggest CSR failures

2010-04-05T03:47:00.000-07:00

If CSR is about self-regulation, then industries that face regulation should view government regulation as a function of their own failure to preempt laws with socially responsible market behavior. After all, if corporations were considering the public interest, if they were acting responsibly, there wouldn’t be a need for consumer protection laws at all. However, there was (and still is) insufficient consideration of corporate responsibility as it relates to financial transactions in financial sector operations. The financial sector must move from “Greed is good” to “Serving customers is good”, and perhaps then to “Acting responsibly towards the economy is good”.

Financial sector must focus on adding value

The financial sector’s problem began when finance stopped being about providing a product to customers. Instead, finance became about figuring out ways to make the most money possible as quickly as possible. The maximum profit goal is only occasionally related to the need to serve customers. In fact, based on the data, customers of active managers may end up losing money when the money manager doesn’t make enough gains to cancel out inflation and the fees they deduct from client funds.

The data also indicates that, on the whole, investors will do just as well by investing in passive funds, like ETFs, that just let money grow with the market naturally. Indeed, statistics show that even top managers only “win” in the market around 50% of the time; that is to say, managers whose investment decisions are 50/50 are prized. Most investors can make financial choices that benefit them 50% of the time; one does not need a financial professional to do that. The value of money managers – to society- is thus debatable.

Financial sector should bear higher fiduciary duties

The financial crisis showed that the souring of risky investment choices for firms, often with their own money, had a serious ripple effect of detriment on the entire economy, and on a national and international scale. In this way, participants in the financial sector must realize that they not only bear the burden of adding value to customers’ portfolios, but they also are each playing a role in safeguarding the entire economy. In the same way that a careless foodworker can poison and kill hundreds of people, a careless financier can do as much damage to life savings, retirement, college funds, etc.

Further, disturbances in the economy has a much stronger tendency to continue to ripple- to continue to cause more and more effects. So where a foodworker’s negligence may lead to harm, etc, those deaths won’t (usually) cause more harm. Whereas in the financial sector, one harmful event triggers a chain of harm.

No lessons learned- firms that caused crises fighting reforms

Thus although the very financial firms that caused (and profited from) the financial crisis are now fighting reform, there is no alternative when firms so obviously lack the discipline to be socially responsible on their own. One day, perhaps we will have a financial sector that again serves and facilitates the economy rather than manipulating it.

Banks Initiate Green CSR Campaigns

2010-04-05T03:39:00.000-07:00

No sooner had I reported on Wells Fargo’s green financing track record than I stumbled over an article in American Banker describing the impressive sustainability activity of four other banks. These inspiring actions show the many ways in which banks of varying asset size can be sustainable and good for society.

Citigroup

Despite Citi’s ‘on the edge’ status in terms of whether it will fail or not, the bank has been able to do a lot of excellent work in sustainability. Citi’s size allows it to make infrastructure investments in cleantech in ways smaller banks can’t, as well as to finance larger scale green projects. One area Citi has focused on is “sustainable IT”, where it has made changes to procedure and to equipment to better manage its firm’s enormous energy use. Citi has worked with the EPA to transition to CPUs that are ultra-energy efficient. They have also changed the company’s email procedure in a program called “Lighten the Load”, which serves to cut down on the volume of email workers spend computer energy managing each day. These initiatives will cut down on Citi’s total carbon output by 3%.

Their IT initiative is only one of a swatch of initiatives you can read about on their website. Others include green building, Haiti recovery, technology recycling and more. Despite the craven behavior of many financial firms, Citi stands out as an ethical firm in an industry that too often rewards amoral behavior.

Bank of America Looks to Green Energy

BOA has pledged $20 billion in investments in sustainability, and they’ve applied it pragmatically, with a focus on efficiency. BOA now runs one Southern California office with fuel cells, following in the footsteps of First Bank of Omaha, which was the first bank to operate off of fuel cells. BOA has also invested heavily in green building. Their green building initiatives have included HVAC upgrades and putting computers to sleep at night, yielding significant energy and cost savings. BOA is off to a good start; with their newfound size and market power, these investments should only be the beginning since they can afford to do so much.

The Johnson Financial Group ($6B in assets) has taken very similar steps as BOA, but on a smaller scale. They also adopted the same software that BOA uses to put its computers to sleep (called Nightwatchman) and built a green facility. Like BOA, despite up front investment, Johnson Financial is seeing savings from reduced energy demand.

Third Federal gets creative with tele-business

Third Federal, a smaller national bank ($750M in assets), has cut down its energy, paper and C02 through reducing the travel of its employees. By instituting new internal policy that embraces broad IT networks, the increasingly popular paperless-billing option and new green building initiatives. Although Third Federal doesn’t have BOA’s cash reserves, they serve to show that banks of all sizes can make common sense changes and investments to reduce their environmental impact.

Overall, it’s just great to hear positive things about the financial sector, and to see that some banks do care about customers beyond their account size.

Accenture Provides Roadmap for Consulting CSR

2010-04-05T03:32:00.000-07:00

By advising the world’s most powerful firms in business practices, consultants have great opportunities to use their power for CSR-good. Although many consulting firms have not taken an introspective look at their own businesses’ CSR, Accenture’s 2008-2009 Corporate Citizenship report shows that the consulting industry has many chances to help propagate CSR practices. Their report provides a plethora of examples of ways a consulting firm can be socially responsible and set an example for their clients.

First steps towards sustainability

In its sustainability report, Accenture evaluates its own business and looks at how its advice influences its clients’ sustainability. Accenture’s own sustainability steps aer in their early stages, and involve a lot of promises about the future. They both reported its carbon footprint, and set targets to meet on carbon reduction. Of course, Accenture’s most important sustainability steps- meeting their targets- lie in the future.

CSR Strength in Numbers

Accenture, as is its business model, has surrounded itself with smart people. In 2008, it joined the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and formed an environmental steering group. Relatedly, it also joined the U.N.’s Business Call to Action. Accenture also committed to the United Nations Global Compact, which describes ten basic principles supporting business’ obligation to protect global human rights. Joining coalitions of larger movements can be useful in encouraging companies to engage with CSR programs, and seems to have been a successful mode for Accenture.

Ethical rigor at the forefront

Accenture appears to be very strict on employee ethics. It is important that a firm with such a trusted role advising other large companies be ethically fastidious themselves. In 2009, they joined a global Anti-Corruption effort, but they also administer a rigorous compliance regime at the firm level, where most employees complete ethics training. Accenture emphasizes and frequently communicates its ethical code to employees, and fires on the first compliance offense as part of its zero-tolerance policy.

Two unique CSR programs

Two particularly cool aspects of Accenture’s program stand out. First, they adopted an offical Pro-Bono policy. Pro-bono work is a relatively untapped way that consultants can be socially responsible in measurable ways. Then, perhaps as part of the pro-bono effort, Accenture has launched a program called Skills to Succeed. Skills to Succeed lends out Accenture’s consultants to solve problems in microfinance, abroad, and in underserved communities domestically. Working together, these two programs have enormous power to help solve business problems in the interest of sustainability.

In total, Accenture’s sustainability report describes a large and established consultancy intent on doing good, and taking the first steps on a CSR journey.

How Green is Cloud Computing

2010-03-29T06:02:00.000-07:00

One of technology’s latest catchphrases, “cloud computing” has been generating a lot of buzz lately. What does it mean to be “in the cloud”? And can operating “in the cloud” become a new sustainable business practice and a green alternative to other forms of computing?

What is it? The term “cloud computing” is used to describe a number of different services and technologies. At its broadest, the term “in the cloud” can refer to any resource available on the Internet. But when IT professionals refer to cloud computing, they often mean software, storage or processing power available virtually, outside of local servers: “software as a service,” “platform as a service,” or “infrastructure as a service.” Cloud computing, then, can refer to services like Google Apps, Google’s collection of applications like Google Docs and Gmail, where file-sharing and email is handled by Google’s servers rather than by a company’s local machines. It can also refer to the services offered by companies like Amazon, whereby computing infrastructure – virtual servers – can be created. It is the latter in particular that might point to a greener future for computing.

How green is it? Much has been written about the energy consumed by data center servers, and as more and more users “log on” and utilize these resources, the power used by the world’s computing infrastructure increases at a rapid rate. The buildings that house data centers are massive, housing thousands of servers that require electricity for both connectivity and for cooling. Although some data centers themselves have gone green, utilizing efficient forms of air-conditioning and upgrading to more efficient computers for example, “cloud computing” provides another alternative.

While companies, particularly those involved in e-commerce, rely on their servers being up and running 24-7 and being able to handle heavy traffic loads, most of the time, these computing resources (including redundancy plans that often involve additional backup servers) are under-utilized. Even with the most energy-efficient processors and cooling plans, this can be incredibly wasteful.

The rise of cloud computing allows for businesses utilize the computing resources they need and pay for what they use. In other words, it allows them to take advantage of “virtualization.” Rather than employing the hardware in data centers, where the servers are always on even when not being fully utilized, virtualization allows “machine instances” to be launched as necessary. There is no need for backup servers, staging servers, redundancy plans and the like; server instances are launched in the cloud as necessary. This is scalable almost instantly, allowing for amazing flexibility with a vastly smaller energy consumption footprint.

Offering a very different metaphor than the unfortunate description of the Internet as “a series of tubes,” cloud computing hopes to provide the next step in computing technology, services, and power. And as one of its features is “virtualization,” the move away from massive hardware and energy consumption might point to a greener, more sustainable business and computing future.

CSR Rankings Smackdown

2010-03-29T01:09:00.000-07:00

March has been a busy month for CSR rankings. CRO and Ethisphere both published their latest editions, joining RiskMetrics Group and Corporate Knights in offering their perspectives on the best of 2010. In my blog on Justmeans, I have posted comparisons of each of these four rankings to the others and plan to continue to research new rankings to bring into the mix.

I encourage those reading my posts to also check out recent articles in the Christian Science Monitor blog (“Are Corporate Social Responsibility Rankings Irresponsible?” by Christine Arena) and Slate (“It’s All Good: Beware of corporate consulting firms offering awards for corporate ethics”, by Will Evans), each raising questions about the integrity of these rankings. Of interest is how rankings tie into the larger business models of the companies that publish them. The Christian Science Monitor article questions the transparency of the rankings while the Slate piece discusses conflict of interests within the Ethisphere rankings.

So are such lists worth discussing at all? The consensus seems to be that regardless of the credibility of indices, lists are a good foundation for discussion. With this in mind, this week, I will be discussing sustainability indices, specifically the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, which gets a lot of attention and seems to avoid some of the scrutiny accorded to its brethren rankings. Stay tuned and please weigh in with your comments and observations.

Call for CSR ranking suggestions

2010-03-15T04:14:00.000-07:00

It’s been a busy year so far. Since the beginning of 2010, RiskMetrics Group, Corporate Knights, and CRO have all announced their picks for the top 100 in CSR and sustainability. I understand that Ethisphere will be coming out with its 2010 edition soon enough, so stay tuned for more fun.

In the meantime, if this is a topic of interest to you, a visit to my blog on Justmeans should be good food for thought. My two recent posts on this subject have focused on the question of how much consensus there is between CSR rankings (the answer: not a lot).

In coming months, I’d like to experiment with comparing these rankings against others relevant to the field and would welcome suggestions on lists worth exploring. Please email me through the Justmeans website if you have any suggestions.

How the Oscars Could Be Socially Responsible …

2010-03-15T03:55:00.000-07:00

The Oscars provided a night of glitz and glamour, but not a night of social responsibility. Why doesn’t the nation’s leading award ceremony care about, well, anything?

Some may say that the Hurt Locker’s big win was a social response, but when it comes to looking for CSR from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Oscars have a long way to go. The Oscars seem to have made no efforts to be green, to give back locally, etc. And that’s a shame, because the Oscars have high potential to do really cool things with CSR. Like Ghandi’s famous quote “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” below are things CSR that the Oscars COULD do:

Transparency

The Oscars are known for being ostentatious, expensive affair. However, transparency about how much it costs in terms of money, energy, and other consumptive metrics may bring constructive criticism to the issue.

Kids and Acting

Most successful brands in CSR do things that are a natural extension of their core business. To this end, The Oscars have a lot to contribute towards providing resources for the acting hopes and dreams of kids, especially those that would not otherwise have the resources for such activities. They could give away some of the oh-so-precious seats to kids, hold acting camps around the time of the show, sponsor kids in art school. Pro-sports do a good job demonstrating CSR opportunities related to big, annual events.

Be Green

Everything else is going green, and the Oscars could follow. From reducing the energy suck of the lighting to using recycled metals in the statues, the Oscars has green options that is not currently doing anything about. While The Oscars is an event that tends to sell itself, it may be even more impactful if it touted its social responsibility.

Choose an annual cause

Another cool way the Oscars could improve their CSR is to champion one cause annually. The members of the Academy could vote for a cause, like they vote for best picture, and a portion of ticket sales or Academy dues could go towards it. The cause could be the one the Best Picture director chooses, or it could be that the Best Picture director must donate to a cause of choice if they win. For example, what if every winner last night also had a charity attached to them, so that the Oscars turned into a benefit? What if the charity influenced Academy votes? Or, the Academy could market an annually chosen organization in tandem with the Oscars, drawing attention to it.

There are such exciting CSR opportunities for the Oscars to leverage… one hopes that one day they will.

Is the Tea Party actually the CSR Party?

2010-03-03T05:57:00.000-08:00

The Tea Party’s popularity has been interpreted in a variety of ways, but we should consider one more- the tea party as a call for corporate restraint. In this way, the Tea Party and the CSR movement share important principles, perhaps more than you’d expect.

Desire for governmental reform: The Tea Party looks for large scale government downsizing and reform. The need for CSR results from a lack of effective regulation of corporations. There is common ground- the desire for more effective laws and regulation, rather than just more laws and regulation. CSR is important because the government fails to adequately protect the public from corporate harm, which the Tea Party seems to agree with.
Against government control: Tea Party members are obsessed with personal liberty; in this way, they join corporations. Oftentimes corporations create CSR programs to preempt, and hopefully stave off, government regulation. CSR, when acting as self regulation, is a necessary requirement to safely scale back government regulation of industry.
Anger over corporate bailouts: The tea party is incensed over the 2008-9 bailouts of the financial and automotive sectors. None of these bailouts would have been necessary had effective, comprehensive CSR programs been in place. CSR regimes would have discouraged the recklessness in the financial sector as a betrayal of stakeholder (and shareholders), and may have stemmed the overinvestment in environmentally harmful vehicles like the Hummer that later became a cash vacuum for GM.
Anger over lost jobs and health care: The Tea Party has formed partly as an outlet for intense public frustration over the recession’s casualties: jobs, and healthcare obtained through jobs. Sustainable businesses are those that consider success on social issues as competitively important as net income, one of which is worker well being. Businesses with strong CSR cut jobs as a last resort, after streamlining every other aspect of business possible, including C-level pay. The transparency that accompanies CSR standards also helps to ensure that jobs that are cut have to be.
Grassroots action: The Tea Party has been resounding demonstration of the success of grassroots action. In this way, they have a lot to hope for through CSR, in which corporations engage in discourse and solution building with grassroots organizations.

Obviously, the Tea Party and CSR diverge in key areas. The Tea Party thinks that climate change is a conspiracy; most corporations with CSR programs are working to reduce their contribution to climate change. The Tea Party represents a wing of the most conservative of conservatives, the CSR movement in has grown from liberal activists with business acumen. Yet there are so many important points of overlap that hopefully a siloh-busting leader can unify Tea Party members and CSR advocates for maximum enhancement of the public good.

Is WalMart green if its supply chain is?

2010-03-03T05:52:00.000-08:00

WalMart recently revealed a campaign – on Treehugger.com no less – to cut 20 million tons of GHGs from its supply chain. In fact, WalMart has been a sustainability leader for about five years; it one of the largest sellers of organic produce in the U.S. and has made both its fleet and stores more energy efficient. Now Walmart is leaning on its supply chain to get green by focusing on sourcing sustainable products. Can WalMart count the sustainability of its supply chain towards its own accomplishments? Sure. WalMart keeps some suppliers alive- it supports an entire network of commerce (too big too fail?). WalMart is a fantastic example of how critical marketpower can be in affecting rapid change, and of how creative a company can be in implementing CSR measures.

WalMart has an impressive sustainability record. One day in 2005, WalMart just decided to get environmental. Maybe it was the constant barrage of negative press about its tendency to kill local competition, or bad press around its labor practices. While those stories haven’t really waned, WalMart has exploded with environmental activity, which partly because of its size and marketpower, is ultra effective.

Now WalMart is applying its business model -buy so much of something that suppliers will agree to an ultralow price- to its sustainability practices. Few WalMart suppliers can afford to give up the volume of business WalMart offers, no matter what WalMart demands of them. Many suppliers wouldn’t even exist, let alone have a motive to buy green, except for WalMart’s commercial pressure. This is how WalMart gets the prices it does, and this is how they will accomplish the GHG goal they announced last week.

WalMart’s CSR is delightful not because it is a perfect company; there are plenty of WalMart critics. It’s because WalMart has thought its CSR, and particularly its sustainability initiatives, through in minute detail. It takes gains where it can, and thinks creatively; for example, it redesigned packaging so that more skus can be efficiently packed into trucks, saving trips. It has discovered how to use its core competency as a business to address social problems where it makes the most sense. The extension of business efficiency applied to social problems is the most productive form CSR can take. This may be why Walmart still gets criticized for labor minimalism; raising pay would hurt its business model. Where WalMart’s green initiatives are have a distinctly WalMart flavor- high volume, supply chain emphasis.

In the same way it makes sense for AT&T to have donated cell phones in Haiti, or for Johnson and Johnson to do so much work around sanitation, a natural first step in CSR is for companies to capitalize on preexisting strengths for the public good. Companies can often be extremely effective, like Walmart, by applying the strength of its core competencies toward a new purpose: doing good.

CSR around the World

2010-03-03T04:10:00.000-08:00

One of the most satisfying aspects of blogging is when a post generates good conversation. This was the case with my February 3rd “Frontier CSR” post on Justmeans, which focused on the state of corporate social responsibility in Central and Eastern Europe.

I particularly enjoyed a comments by Marisha S., who shared the following observation:

“CSR is evolving in CEE, the Caucasus and in Russia. The pace of acceptance is fueled due to the inate 'social conciousness' that is part of the busines landscape inherited from the past. Consider that during the Soviet period, state enterprises in Eastern bloc and CCCP were responsible for most of the social care of their employees. Employees could access to medical care, holiday homes, food from farms falling within the network. From the late 1980s when the first COOPs appeared, to the early 1990s when the first small enterprises emerged, well-being of employees was a key factor in business models.”

The writer of this comment makes a valuable point about the unique flavor that CSR takes on in different parts of the world. Indeed, I wish that every post would result in such interesting comments from readers.

Today I posted a short piece on how economics have solved many of the problems in Chinese factories that CSR practitioners and vendor compliance officers have struggled for years to address. I only hope that it will generate similar insight from any readers who have experience trying to address labor issues in Chinese factories.

Luxurious CSR

2010-03-03T04:00:00.000-08:00

One ongoing theme I have covered in my blog on Justmeans is the role of CSR in fashion and luxury goods. In the piece that initiated the series, I wrote about my discovery that luxury department stores are--- at least publicly--- doing close to nothing in the way of CSR and sustainability. Apparently, there is a consensus among these stores that the responsibility for social and environmental issues rests primarily with the suppliers.

In short, these stores have the luxury of being fickle, if necessary distancing themselves with any brand too deeply entrenched in controversy. Not surprisingly, luxury brands themselves seem to take CSR more seriously than their buyers. Reputation-wise, each individual brand has a lot of eggs in one basket, so when controversy hits, it hits them hard.

But CSR and sustainability don’t have to be entirely about managing the risk of controversy. Sustainable products can be a good thing. In theory, consumers should be willing to shell out more for a responsible product. The data says so. Right?

Wrong. In fact, I have not yet stumbled across substantive data to support this claim. It makes some sense that consumers are willing to spend a bit more on lightbulbs or windows that will save them money over a reasonably short time horizon. Unfortunately, at least in the case of the luxury apparel industry, few garments are likely to save customers money. This is why we see relatively few sustainable brands being marketed by major department stores.

So I end this post with a call to action. If you have good data on demand for luxury goods, please send it to me or include it in a comment on one of my Justmeans posts on the subject. Good information on this topic has the potential to shape how wealthier consumers interface with sustainability issues.

CSR Rankings

2010-03-03T00:51:00.000-08:00

It’s been interesting to note that CSR rankings have been among the most popular topics I have touched upon in my blog on Justmeans. My two posts on CSR rankings seem to be the most tweeted topics I have covered, and I have received some interesting feedback from Justmeans community members about the differences between methodologies.

If you stumble on one of my posts about the subject, I’d encourage you to jump into the conversation and also to let me know if there are other rankings that you’d like to see me cover. So far, I have examined the CRO Best Corporate Citizens, Ethisphere Institute’s Most Ethical Companies, Newsweek Green Rankings, and Corporate Knights Global 100, with RiskMetrics Group’s Global ESG 100 soon to follow. It would be interesting to hear feedback about any lists I haven’t mentioned yet, particularly those developed by organizations based outside of the U.S.

Also, stay tuned for the answer to the riddle I posed in my most recent post. My research revealed that there is only one single company that makes all five lists I have examined so far. Stay tuned to the Justmeans CSR page to find out what it is.

Moms Champion Their Own Socially Responsible Products

2010-02-15T10:30:00.000-08:00

As if there aren’t enough challenges to being a mother, contending with agribusiness for high quality, nutritional, tasty food can be a war of its own. As the controversy over obesity swirls on, recently spotlighted by Jamie Oliver’s TED win, some moms have turned their own solutions for ensuring their families’ nutrition into million dollar food companies. The Wall Street Journal highlighted some of these stories in its article “The Mothers of Invention” by Dale Buss.

Blue Water: Healthy, Organic Snack Foods

The market has seen an influx of snack and food products created by moms that wanted socially sustainable, healthy, tasty snacks for their kids, but couldn’t find them commercially available. For example, there are a variety of organic, frozen baby foods now available that did not exist a few years ago, thanks to a new generation of social conscious shoppers- women who struggled to find healthy, non-GMO, organic baby food for their growing children. In this way, CSR is built into the business; the women founding these companies are fulfilling personal demands for sustainable food when the preexisting market failed to.

Professional Expertise To Meet Their Own Needs

Many of the ladies spotlighted in the WSJ article are not new to business. In this way, the article is an endorsement of equal rights as much as it is about food. One of the benefits of women’s expansion in the workforce and slow climb up corporate ladders, is that women increasingly see themselves as entrepreneurs. So when the mother/ marketing exec, or mother/ finance exec, or mother/ product development manager faces a challenge in her daily life, the “business opportunity” lightbulb goes off.

The women launching these businesses are also equipped with serious connections. According to the WSJ Gigi Lee Chang, founder of Plum Organics, came from a family in Chinese manufacturing. Shazi Visram, founder of Nurture Inc. and Happybaby, teamed with Stoneyfield Farms and a famous pediatrician. Tastybaby is co-owned by a member of the Swanson-family frozen food clan, and Denise Devine of Froose Brands is a former Campbell executive. By leveraging their careers, these women are able to both head their own companies and maintain a work-life balance nonexistent in the corporate world, solving a second latent need.

Parents Agents for Protecting Kid’s Futures

In some ways, parents are the most obvious agents for socially responsible ventures. Social responsibility is significantly about making an investment in the future, and the future belongs to their children. Outside of the children themselves, parent interests are strongly aligned with a healthy, nontoxic, sustainable world.

CSR: A Primer for Skeptics and LOST Fans

2010-02-09T04:29:00.000-08:00

CSR does not only mean Customer Service Representative. To a wide variety of politicians, nonprofits and corporations, CSR means “corporate social responsibility”. This term, alien to many, represents an even more foreign idea: that corporations owe something to society that they must take responsibility for.

“Amelia, I don’t care. I didn’t even really read the paragraph you just wrote. I just skipped to the quote here. Are you going to watch the LOST finale?”

Probably. LOST is an interesting show. To summarize the incredibly complicated plot for people protected from US media, LOST is a program that documents a plane crash on a tropical island. Borrowing heavily from Lord of the Flies by William Golding, LOST is a dramatic recounting the survivors’ lives on the mysterious island, using a point of view that rotates by episode. The island magically fuses a variety of ecosystems to maximize the number of predators that can threaten the survivors. Plus, survivors face previously unknown monsters, hostile natives and a shadowy corporate puppet master behind the whole thing.

The part of LOST that indicates the importance of CSR is the corporate puppet master- the Hanso Foundation. This foundation is the financing organization behind the Dharma Initiative, an academic project that attempted to create a utopian society on the island where the plane crash occurs years later. Just as the Dharma Initiative made poor choices for the world that effect later generations on the island, CSR is the movement to encourage corporations to operate their businesses in ways that do not incur harm to later generations.

“Hmm. Ok; but the Hanso Foundation was designed to help the world. The website says so.”

The problem with the Hanso Foundation, and the starting point for any CSR campaign, is that Hanso did not disclose anything they did. Consumers are supposed to trust their good intentions despite evidence to the contrary. Indeed, the secrecy and uncertainty surrounding the Hanso Foundation and the Dharma Initiative stokes much of the show’s drama. In real life, consumers do not want this drama. In real life corporate secrecy harms the ‘perfect information’ economic theory relies on to derive meaning from consumer choices. When consumers do not have perfect, or even good, or even any information, they are purchasing based on price and marketing only. Price and marketing do not inform consumers of the affect a company and its products have on the world. Consumers may change their buying preferences if they had better information about how companies and products affect the world.

“So if Hanso disclosed information about their organization, what then?”

If Hanso disclosed its data, it would be at the beginning of the transformation into a foundation that is socially responsible. Hanso’s disclosure would help consumers better choose whether to buy the products that make it rich and powerful. Consumers could create laws, as governments, to protect themselves if they felt that Hanso’s hydrogen bomb experiments posed too much risk. Hanso would not be able to make decisions for people without their permission, but may be able to make products that better fit consumer needs. Disclosure would mean that Hanso would have to change their organization to consider other people that are affected by it. This idea is sometimes called Stakeholder Theory.

“But what would happen to LOST if Hanso didn’t cause all this destruction?”

Based on Season 6 it seems possible that there is a version of the world where, if Hanso had rigorous CSR policies, no one would have ever been stranded on the island and no hydrogen bomb would ever go off. So basically… CSR can save the world.

“So CSR can save the world and it starts with disclosure?”

That’s right. At its most basic level, CSR is the corporate recognition that business practices have measurable effects on stakeholders that the corporation is responsible for.

Good Company Update

2010-02-04T06:31:00.000-08:00

If you haven’t visited the Justmeans CSR editorial page yet, please do! January was a busy month. Over the past few of weeks, I introduced the Good Company series, published posts on CSR in Haiti and the SEC’s new climate change announcement, and explored the state of sustainability programs in luxury department stores (hint: they don’t exist!). Please visit and comment. I would welcome your thoughts on anything discussed so far.

For those of you wondering what’s next for Good Company, stay tuned. I will be conducting a series of interviews in the next week or two with sustainability officers from two companies on the list I published a couple of weeks ago. I look forward to sharing my findings with you.

Finally, a call to action for readers of the blog. Please be sure not only to comment whenever possible but to give me feedback about what Fortune 500 companies you’d like to see me cover in the series. I want to make sure that my CSR posts respond to your needs and interests.

Introducing the Good Company CSR Series on Justmeans

2010-01-24T23:56:00.000-08:00

My CSR blog on Justmeans has kept me busy over the past two weeks! Since the blog launched the week before last, I have interviewed five sustainability experts, published four posts, and started developing my two next pieces. It has been hard work, but it has also been a lot of fun. I look forward to continuing the lively discussions that the blog has generated.

For those who have not yet tuned in, my main endeavor on Justmeans is the Good Company series, which focuses on the historical context behind the CSR programs of Fortune 500 companies. So far, I have written or held interviews for pieces on DuPont, Wal-Mart, and GE, and have also created posts on more abstract topics such as CSR Rankings and the business case for sustainability programs within luxury department stores.

What's next? Elaine Cohen (who by the way does some really interesting work reviewing CSR reports for Corporate Register) commented on my first post, asking that I make sure to cover companies that haven't already been discussed to death by the sustainability community. I don't plan to disappoint on this front and will be delving into some less visible companies in future weeks.

Thanks to all those who have contributed to the series so far and I look forward to continuing the conversation about sustainability and CSR on Justmeans.

Energy, Emissions, and Extreme CSR

2009-12-17T23:00:00.000-08:00

CSR is not about doing good. It is about survival. This is my first post under the CSR heading as Energy & Emissions writer for Justmeans, and since that is one of my fundamental beliefs about CSR, I wanted to get that opinion out in the open right away.

I am an engineer working on energy efficiency and renewable energy programs. I own my own company, Integrated Renewable Energy, here in Seattle, WA, US. After 30 years as a Systems Engineer for NASA, Boeing, and a handful of entrepreneurial space firms, I determined that I needed to do something more relevant to my children's futures and made the transition to energy.

I have definite ideas about the role of corporations in our society, and how they need to change the way they act. In a nutshell, corporations need to reflect the fact that they are made of people, and the human soul must be respected inwardly and outwardly. The days of the "soulless" corporation are over. Soulless corporations are going to die. The only question is will they take the rest of us with them when they do. And the answer to that question lies in how well we do in changing the way they act now. So I think it's time for Extreme CSR. We had better change the direction we're headed or we might end up where we're going.

I have three tenets for this blog. The first I stated above - CSR is not about doing good. It is about survival. It is about how we can evolve corporate culture (individual and collective) to survive in a world where economic and social injustices are more visible and less tolerated, and on a planet where we are reaching real physical limits.

Second, corporations are more responsible than citizens to change the way our economies are structured. Corporations use the vast majority of our energy, water, and other materials. Yet when things go bad, it is not the corporations who put their children to bed hungry. They don't see their land and water blighted. They don't shiver in the dark. But citizens risk these things every day. They are already paying a price. So corporations need to take the lion's share of responsibility for change, either voluntarily or by law.

Finally, the point of using CSR as a marketing tool is not to score points with consumers, but to change the world. Laggard corporations need to see that an ethical, socially responsible path is also a productive and sustainable one, and that conventional management is leading us all to a dark alley, a dead end.

So that's who I am, and that's where I am coming from. I welcome all thoughts and comments along the way. I hope we will have some enlightening discussions. But more than that, I hope we spark some actions.

Selective Corporate Social Responsibility

2009-10-14T22:22:00.001-07:00

One of the more controversial issues in CSR currently is the growth of the palm oil industry. Demand for palm oil outstrips supply. This is caused in part, by many Governments committing to increase the amount of biofuel sold because it has in recent years been regarded as a quick fix to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By 2020, 10 % of fuel sold in the EU will be biofuel. China expects 15 % of its fuel to be grown in fields, while India has committed to 20% of its diesel to be biodiesel by 2012. In the UK, one in four products (including food, personal hygiene and cleaning products) contain palm oil and in the USA palm oil is a multibillion dollar industry. The spotlight is clearly on the private sector.

In reaction to the exponential growth, many high profile campaigns highlight the detrimental effects of using palm oil. Large companies have been named and shamed for their unsustainable palm oil practices and others have gone as far as completely banning palm oil from their products. ‘NO PALM OIL’ logos are popping up almost daily. So the industry responded with sustainable palm oil. Corporate giant, Unilever (with pressure from Greenpeace and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) have committed to only use sustainable palm oil, despite fears that demand will outstrip supply and they are not alone.

But there is a catch and consumer pressure is still one of the most powerful forces driving the industry. Cadbury New Zealand was forced to switch back to cocoa butter in their Dairy Milk product after consumers protested against the use of palm oil, even though it was sustainable. The Body Shop came under fire for using sustainable palm oil from Columbia, because despite the ‘green’ credentials, the owner of the land reportedly threw peasants out of their homes to make way for more palm oil plantations. And herein lies the rub: environmental sustainability alone is not enough. This is where true Corporate Social Responsibility (the completely embedded version that includes ethical considerations) can separate the greenwash marketing campaigns from the truly impressive, profit making giants.

Palm oil itself is not the issue. The product is a healthy alternative to trans fatty acids. For a while Palm oil was billed as the biofuel of choice, but the production, manufacture, transportation and just about every aspect from plantation to product are in the spotlight of the debate. This is a fine example of how CSR is crucial for the industry to survive. This month saw the World Bank freeze financial support for the industry until the environmental and social impacts of palm oil are investigated.

The ramifications of ignoring the agenda are clear and what the rest of business can learn from the palm oil industry is that greenwashing, paying lip service and only focussing on one aspect of CSR may work temporarily, but as the old adage goes, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

Copenhagen: A Private Sector Affair?

2009-10-05T02:52:00.000-07:00

October has arrived and you can begin to feel the pace beginning to quicken as the impending UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen becomes more tangible, urgent and political every day. The inevitable media melee around the conference will act as a lens to sharpen all of the world’s attention on a small group of people, the latest evidence on climate change understanding and the scale of any commitments that they eventually agree upon. To watch such environmental responsibility rest on the shoulders of such a tiny number of those representing the entire global community is to me unnerving in the extreme, especially now.

Politics aside, the private sector has been preparing for their role with such initiatives as the Copenhagen Communiqué backed by HRH Prince Charles, which has already been signed by more than 670 business signatories from across the globe after its launch just over a week ago. UN Secretary General Mr Ban Ki-Moon was handed the Communiqué by a signatory CEO from each global region at last week’s UN Summit on Climate Change in New York. The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the World Energy Council (WDC) also recently called on government leaders to reach climate change agreement in Copenhagen from the World Climate Conference in Geneva. Global business leaders from more than 150 countries asked for an agreement on ‘a post 2012 framework to provide business with a clear, predictable framework to stimulate investment in technologies that will enable a transition to a low carbon economy.’ Juan Gonzalez-Valero, Head of Corporate Responsibility at Syngenta, stated: “Better climate information helps business to focus our research and make the right long-term investments.” He added: “If you think growing enough crops to feed the world won't be impacted by climate, you're dreaming.”

At multinational scales politics and Corporate Social Responsibility issues often overlap. As the USA debates the Boxer-Kerry bill, Nike is rumoured to be the latest big name to take a timely stand against the US Chamber of Commerce’s climate change statements They are expected to resign their position on the Chamber board following pressure from socially responsible investment groups.

Whilst the economic trials and tribulations may still be hogging the immediate centre stage, the timing of the conference should serve us well by getting businesses to lift their heads away from hopes of economic recovery and pushing planning horizons much further forward beyond this financial year, the next or even decade to come. Climate change is everybody’s environmental responsibility. Any negotiations In Copenhagen cannot be left solely in the hands of those playing any type of short term Machiavellian vote winning tactics. Boards and CEO’s are being tasked with demonstrating longer term strategic considerations and so should elected officials. Businesses need to ensure their voices are heard. Delay is not an option. The planet cares not for politics.

Mobile Communications, CSR and Climate Change

2009-10-05T02:46:00.000-07:00

What benefits can mobile communication technologies offer in the quest for environmental responsibility? IT is near the front of the crowd in the firing line for the impact of its carbon emissions. It is also near the front of a separate crowd with impressive potential to reduce emissions. There have been many voices in favour of the ‘technology will save us’ camp but counter-balanced by an equal number of detractors, regularly citing the whole-life carbon cost of creating such technology. There can be little argument that the most effective way of reducing our carbon dependence is by wholesale change of socially responsible individual behaviour, regardless of the technology based tools already present or on the horizon. Technology, none the less, will play a crucial role in the overall campaign to minimise climate change. Particular areas deserving increased attention are the roles of communication technologies such as wireless broadband, RFID, smart grids and mobile telephony.

Vodafone and Accenture, in an entrepreneurial use of a Corporate Social Responsibility approach similar to GE’s Ecomagination programme, recently published a report into the potential carbon savings of such technologies. The report showed that have identified 13 specific opportunities, that by 2020 and supported by mobile services could save 2.4% of expected EU emissions – 113 million tonnes of CO2e, equivalent to saving 18% of UK emissions in 2008. This would save €43 billion in energy costs alone and would require a billion mobile connections, 87% of which are machine-to-machine (M2M), connecting one piece of equipment wirelessly with another.

The practical benefits being touted include reduction in the need to physically travel because of improvements to virtual communication spaces for meetings, remote office facilities, smart logistics through monitoring and tracking of vehicles, smart grids & meters providing operational efficiencies and smart cities to improve traffic and utilities management. If implemented on the massive scale suggested it is easy to see how just such tools could better assist society manage its environmental responsibility.

For these uses of information communications technology to be truly accepted and maximise the inherent potential, many obstacles need to be overcome such as capital investment required for infrastructure (especially in developing nations), interoperability, hardware reliability and of course political inertia. At the very least it is encouraging to see the private sector using Corporate Social Responsibility as inspiration for commercial innovation.

Socially Responsible Retailer Tackles Human Trafficking

2009-09-30T06:39:00.000-07:00

The Body Shop, the pioneering socially responsible retailer, has unveiled a new approach to addressing the global issue of child sex trafficking at the Clinton Global Initiative this week. Human trafficking is the third largest and fastest growing criminal industry in the world and the Body Shop has thrown the weight of its 2500 global stores behind this campaign.

With such high ethical credentials from the outset under Anita Roddick’s original masterful stewardship, the Body Shop has always held its head proudly above the parapet. They have always had a reputation for pushing way beyond the traditional corporate social responsibility definition and the latest campaign is no different. The initiative called the ‘Progress Card System’ scores countries on the depth of their governments efforts to stop sex trafficking. The next three years will see the partnership with EPCAT International raise awareness, generate funds and encourage active supporters to demand change.

Since the acquisition by the L’Oréal Group back in 2006 there have been questions over the implications over the Body Shop’s ability to adhere to its original strong ethical values, as the new parent does have one or two skeletons in their own ethics wardrobe. As yet there are no definitive signs of any reduction in their corporate social responsibility commitment but one particular blogger wasn’t too happy when a Body Shop assistant warned that she wasn’t allowed take photographs of the store, even from the street (quoting orders from management) when viewing the new campaign poster. What would Anita have said about that? Mrs. Roddick believed that selling The Body Shop to L’Oréal was the best way to guarantee the company values into the future.

She said, “I have not worked all these years to be satisfied to have pioneered a new way of doing business that nobody else ever tries. I want to make things happen, to spread human values wider in business if I possibly can. And this sale gives us the chance to do so.”

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then the Body Shop will forever have a smile. It helped change the way many people think about their purchasing power, where products came from, how they were made, and is undoubtedly still at the vanguard of socially and environmentally responsible business. There may be more questions yet to come about the integration into the L’Oreal Group but the Body Shop continues to keep the ethical bar beyond where most retailers dare to consider.

New Age Corporate Social Responsibility

2009-09-24T03:36:00.000-07:00

The concept of new age CSR is changing. Corporations have never been more interested in supporting their communities. With open source marketing and successful collaborations, this seems to be a promising era for corporate social responsibility. Based on a survey by LGB Research Institute (a non-profit organization), business organizations are using untapped non-cash resources for initiating good work.

It was great to learn that companies are not only getting involved in providing in-kind donations but new sustainable products are also being introduced to the consumers. The emphasis is on establishing partnership with non-profit enterprises, taking non-profit accountability and measurability into serious consideration.

The new age concept of corporate social responsibility goes beyond just writing checks. Collaboration with social enterprises is being done to generate impactful programs. In order to gain strong brand recognition, several new age firms are integrating corporate social responsibility initiatives to their capabilities. From orphanage construction and promoting health camps to conducting rehabilitation camps, corporations are making significant contributions to the society.

I recently read about Entergy Charitable Foundation’s contribution of 355,000 dollars to the Teach For America movement. With this effort, the foundation’s total investment in this cause has reached 1.3 million dollars since 2002. I feel that the involvement of corporations in developing communities should be CEO driven. Only when the top management shows optimum commitment towards good work, societal and environmental interests can be achieved.

Miller Coors’ Water Stewardship Activity

2009-09-14T06:09:00.000-07:00

There is no doubt that transparency by means of sustainability can lead to better CSR performance. It seems Miller Coors; one of the largest brewing companies in the United States has taken this aspect into serious consideration. The company for the month of September will be drawing the nation’s attention towards better water supply and usage. This will be the company’s first annual Water Stewardship Month. Miller Coors plans to bring together all 10 brewery locations and corporate facilities into a partnership with local non-profit organizations and hold volunteer events for better water quality.

The management stated that water is essential for their business and the community where they operate. Since the company has been following its goal to produce and pack more beer using less water, this corporate social responsibility initiative can be considered a responsible move. Their roots are on the shore of Lake Michigan and the Rocky Mountains and if the company doesn’t focus on environmental concerns, it will result in more carbon footprint.

Water Stewardship Month will be dealing with several water issues and Miller Coors volunteers will take the initiative to clean beaches and rivers in their local communities, plant trees and bushes in preservation areas and even test water quality. The company is focusing on community investment along with environmental sustainability but let’s see how far it manages to take its belief in ‘Great Beer comes Great Responsibility!

Corporate Initiatives to Lower Carbon Footprint

2009-09-11T03:32:00.000-07:00

Global issues like climate change and carbon footprint are hitting the headlines almost every day. Pressure is mounting on companies to bring down their carbon emission. But the good news is that thousands of companies all over the world have realized the significance of reducing carbon footprint. Environmental sustainability is being given top most priority in many CSR agendas. Johns Manville, a Berkshire Hathaway company has taken a similar initiative. This leading manufacturer of premium building products has enrolled 200 drivers in the online training and certification program by GreenDriver. As a full-service certification and e-learning program, GreenDriver provides assistance to government and commercial fleets in reducing CO2 and fuel consumption.

Johns Manville plans to bring down their overall CO2 emission by encouraging their employees to learn effective and practical techniques of driving. With this corporate sustainability initiative the company also plans to improve total ownership cost with reduction in fuel expenses.

Corporate initiatives like these are required on a larger scale. Even if a company reduces its carbon emission what happens to the emission from its supply chains? It’s time for companies to take a step further and work with their suppliers to measure emission from their supply chains as well. This initiative has been taken by several large companies like Cadbury Schweppes, Unilever and Tesco. Even though it will put more pressure on companies, it will also help them move closer to climate accountability.

UN Geneva Headquarter Goes Green

2009-09-08T05:55:00.000-07:00

Environment-friendly entities all over the world are realizing the benefits of going green. United Nations’ Geneva headquarters recently joined the bandwagon with the prestigious Nature Reserve Certificate for its ‘go green’ efforts. This certificate is given to entities that manage 30% green area around their building in a natural way to protect the environment. The 46 hectare Ariana Park of the UN office in Geneva has a variety of flowers and trees that are more than a century old. No pesticides are used on these plants and sheep are used in place of lawnmowers!

As a part of “Greening the U.N.” initiative, United Nations’ Geneva headquarters is witnessing more eco-friendly improvements. Solar panels of 60 square meters have been set up to generate hot water for the buildings. Flushing units and pipes are replaced with water saving units and new energy-efficient lighting has also been installed. In an attempt to control CO2 emission and encourage employees who bike to work, 233 parking spaces have been created for bicycles.

The UN completed its effort of installing pipes around the ground for bringing water from Lake Geneva in June 2009. This has been done to keep the Palais and neighboring buildings cool. The Genève-Lac-Nations Project launched in July 2009 is said to decrease the consumption of electricity by 490 Megawatt-hours annually. It will also reduce water consumption by 8000 cubic meters every year. Environmental sustainability efforts made by a major entity can be a great inspiration for companies all over the world. The key to success lies in taking a small step towards achieving the goal.

Middle East’s Contribution to Global Corporate Social Responsibility

2009-09-07T00:24:00.000-07:00

Does it feel good to read about initiatives taken by companies to promote CSR events? It surely does, isn’t it? I am sure you will consider the rise in number of business organizations taking this concept into serious consideration, a good sign. Even though various European companies are taking up corporate social responsibility activities to promote good work, one can’t deny the contribution made by Middle East companies as well. Their involvement to global CSR may have contributed in making our planet a better place to live in, but are they doing enough?

Since we are discussing corporate social responsibility events and good work done by companies all over the Middle East, the question that still lingers is-Do Arab companies really care? You may have come across news items on how few Arab organizations decide to provide a sponsorship to health conferences or launch campaigns on sports, education and health safety. But there’s still a lot of grass-root initiative to be taken. In the World Economic Forum, experts were of view that even the local Arab companies want to participate in CSR activities but they consider this concept as mere charity efforts. If they are to be believed, corporate social responsibility in Middle East is still at an early stage and more efforts are required to establish partnership with NGOs and government agencies to address graver issues like rise in carbon footprint, low education facilities and unemployment.

I won’t deny the fact that the government in Middle East countries is trying hard to make companies understand that CSR goes beyond charity. Young people are being encouraged to take part in active training programs at the workplace. The government is also giving out grants to bridge the gap of knowledge and education between them and the western world. Overall, the initiative of the rulers and government of Middle East in doing good work for the community seems to be promising but the regional businesses still need to be encouraged in integrating effective CSR policies.

Corporate Social Responsibility

2009-07-24T05:30:00.000-07:00

Starbucks has a goal to ethically source all of its coffee by 2015. While some believe that as a highly profitable firm, they should set a more aggressive target, one must consider the time it takes to audit and alter the supply chain where needed. Systems-thinking reminds us that it takes several actors to create a change, so companies like Starbucks, which source their products from all over the globe, have a lot of coordinating to do in order to reach their 2015 goal. This may involve working with private farm owners and workers, local governments, and perhaps even NGOs who know the particular areas. Meanwhile, the public pressure is a good thing and keeps big corporations on their toes, reminding them to stay diligent and make an honest effort towards their goal. For example, here’s an appeal from 2006 to Starbucks: